Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit 2

Term:
Spring 2010

Subject Code:
GPHI

Course Number:
6022

In the second
half of this year-long study of Hegel's pivotal early work our focus will be on
the chapter on "Spirit." In it Hegel proposes that reflective
self-understanding of ourselves as modern, self-determining subjects is a
historical accomplishment, and hence that philosophical self-consciousness is
necessarily historically mediated. Central to his argument is his account of
the Greek world represented in Sophocles' Antigone
(against which a variety of feminist critiques have been lodged); the French
Revolution and the Terror; the critique of the moral philosophies of Kant and
Fichte (against which a variety of Kantian counters have been lodged). The
course will then turn to Hegel's account of "Religion," which raises
the question of whether Hegel's system is merely a philosophical interpretation
of Christian revelation or an atheistic system whose core ideals are merely
anticipated by Christianity. Finally, we shall study Hegel's account of
"Absolute Knowing" (his ultimate defense of idealism against
epistemological realism), and his conception of philosophy as
"speculative" writing in the "Preface." Consideration of
contemporary accounts of Hegel's idealism by Pippin, Brandom, and others will
be a leitmotif of our reflections.